No place like home
This story first appeared in the November 9, 2007 edition of The Guide
By JAY STRUTH
Ninety-two-year-old Donald Keith (Bud) Currie is one of Killarney’s oldest remaining veterans. He was born and raised in Killarney, just across the street from the home in which he and his wife, Lil, have lived for nearly 60 years.
Bud has been away from his hometown just twice, for an extended length of time anyway. Once, when he went gold mining in Ontario, and the next time was when he went to war.
“He never talked about the war much until the last few years,” said Lil. “Now that he’s older he has begun telling more stories about the war days.”
Bud and his friend Chuck Woods, who was the manager of Killarney’s Leland Hotel at the time, joined up together shortly after WWII broke out in 1939.
“I kept after Chuck to join up with me, but he kept telling me ‘just one more week, just one more week, and then I’ll be ready,’” remembers Bud. “When we finally did join up together, we only saw each other once in Shilo and once overseas.”
Lil also joined up, in the air force, in 1941 when she was 18, and had a similar situation with her aunt.
“I was stationed in Patricia Bay, B.C., and my aunt that I joined up with from Killarney, Opal Dagg, was sent to Halifax,” said Lil. “So we never saw each other until after the war.”
Bud took his basic training in Shilo and the Brandon area. He was trained as a machine gunner, track vehicle driver and mechanic with the Saskatoon Light Infantry.
“I had some experience working as a mechanic at a garage in town, so that helped,” he said. “You had to fix your own vehicle if it broke down.”
The track vehicles Bud drove were much smaller than a tank, and often had a gun mounted on them. He sat on a sand bag instead of the vehicle’s regular seat, so as to lower himself, which made him less of a target for the enemy.
When Bud got to England he became part of the British 8th Infantry. The worst fighting he saw was in Italy.
“Italy was a hard country to take,” he said. “Ortona was one of the worst.”
For the Canadians, Ortona was the bloodiest battle of the Italian Campaign. The once picturesque ancient village on the Adriatic coast was reduced to rubble. Canadian and German troops clashed in bitter house-to-house fighting. Snipers, booby traps and land mines were a constant threat, as every building gained brought about a terrible cost in blood. The capture of Ortona, or the “Italian Stalingrad,” in December 1943 is considered among Canada’s greatest achievements during the war.
Bud has one close call that stands out in his mind vividly. When they were fighting in Ortona, an incoming shell levelled nearly two blocks of buildings before smashing through their barracks and coming to rest right near where his bed was. The unexploded shell was carefully removed by bomb specialists soon after.
“That was my closest call,” said Bud. “I remember it was large, silver and very shiny. It looked like it didn’t have a mark on it. When we saw it there was a lot of panic and people yelling ‘get away, it could still go off.’ But it never did.”
One of Bud’s happier memories of Italy was his unit’s visit to Mount Vesuvius just months before the volcano’s last eruption in March of 1944.
“We walked right up there and looked into the crater,” said Bud. “Our feet were so hot, even with our double soled boots.”
Another of Bud’s highlights from the war was the time he spent in Holland and the Netherlands.
“I loved Holland. I was there on leave and when the war ended. They had parades and parties for us and treated us so well.”
The Netherlands was liberated largely by Canadian troops. On May 5, 1945, the Canadian General Charles Foulkes and the German Commander-in-Chief Johannes Blaskowitz reached an oral agreement on the capitulation of Germany in Hotel De Wereld in the city of Wageningen. Liberation Day is celebrated each year on May 5 in the Netherlands to mark the end of the German occupation during the Second World War.
“I remember before the war ended we took over a school in Holland for our headquarters; it was very common to use schools for headquarters,” he explained. “The hungry little children would come by with big boxes and pans for us to fill with food, and you’d put as much in as you could. The children were so hungry there.”
Victory in Europe Day (or VE Day) was May 7 and May 8, 1945, the dates when the World War II Allies formally accepted the unconditional surrender of the armed forces of Nazi Germany and the end of Adolf Hitler’s Third Reich.
On April 30, Hitler committed suicide during the Battle for Berlin, and so the surrender of Germany was authorized by his replacement, President of Germany Karl Dönitz. The act of military surrender was signed on May 7 in Reims, France, and May 8 in Berlin, Germany.
After two weeks of touring and celebrations in the Netherlands, and then England, it was back to Killarney for Bud, where he and Lil would marry and start a family.
“We’ve had a very happy life together,” said Lil of their 60-year marriage.
The Curries had five children, and now have 14 grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
“Family is so important,” said Lil. “One of the highlights for Bud during the war was the regular letters he would receive from his sister back home. It wasn’t as easy to keep in touch with home back then, but she kept up her regular correspondence with him.”
“She would even send me cigarettes,” added Bud. “Cigarettes were very popular and always in high demand.”
Bud also recalls how very important the camaraderie was during the war.
“You made good friends over there,” he said. “You had to depend on one another. You could become very close during the war, and then after, never see each other again. That’s just the way it is. We were all happy to finally go home at the end of it all.”
HOME IS WHERE THE HEART IS – Lil Currie poses with her husband, Bud, back in November of 2007, in his Legion uniform adorned with the many medals he earned from WWII. In his hands are letters written by KCI students, who send letters of support and appreciation to local veterans every year.
JAY STRUTH/KILLARNEY GUIDE